high voltage in her lips
by emptyvessels
Summary: Lance Hunter is quick on his feet, and Skye is a great distraction.


Dedicated to Alessandra, who proofread this for me! This is also posted on AO3 under the same name. I do not own Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

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><p>"Can you move any slower?" Lance groaned, following Skye's lead through the dimly lit corridor. "I think I'm actually aging. I can feel my skin cells taking a new form."<p>

"You seem awfully eager to attract attention and march into your own death. Or are you forgetting that there is a room full of people down there that _know what you look like_?"

"You are forgetting that we have a job to do, and that I like a challenge every now and then."

"You are a challenge," Skye muttered under her breath.

Lance snarled, eyes narrowed, but ignored her comment. "Seriously though, could we at least pick up the pace here? It'd be nice to get this done tonight. Preferably while our friends are all still gathered downstairs."

"Can't you just trust that I know what I'm doing?" she asked, turning back to look at him.

He backed down and blinked away, breaking their eye contact, a silent agreement to continue following Skye's lead.

"Good," she smirked, smug. "Now shut the fuck up."

They continued on in silence for a minute, exchanging relieved glances when they finally a

"Shit. It's locked," Skye frowned, forcefully shoving herself into the door.

"What do you mean it's locked?" Lance asked, pushing her aside as he prepared to take matters into his own hands.

"I mean a room with a safe in it is _locked_. Really, it's baffling me too," she quipped.

He ignored her sarcasm. "Move. I'll take care of this."

Skye stepped back and crossed her arms as she watched him, amused by his failed attempts to ram the door open. He was having about as much success as she'd had, and even though they were on a mission and she was technically supposed to want him to get the damn thing open, she was having a little too much fun tasting the victory of his failure.

"Fuck it," he said, giving up after awhile. There's that balcony outside on the third floor. I say we get there and scale the wall up to this room and get in through the window."

"And if the window is locked?" Skye asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Ah, damn. You're right," Lance replied, sarcastic, and shook his head for dramatic effect. "What would we do then? Glass is practically stronger than steel. We'll just have to take our chances."

She rolled her eyes and began making her way towards the stairs, which by sheer luck were located just around the corner.

The sooner this night was over, the better. Personally, she would have had anyone else accompany her on this mission, but this was technically Hunter's turf, him having been inside this building countless times in his past as a mercenary. At the same time, that put them at more of a risk, but nothing about working with S.H.I.E.L.D. ever made much sense to her.

"Here," he called out after her in a raised whisper when she'd walked past a door. "This room leads out to the balcony."

She crept over and poked her head in to make sure that the room was empty, not wanting to risk Lance accidentally attracting the attention of the wrong person. Or any person, for that matter.

"It's clear. Let's go," she whispered back to him, leading the way across the room.

He cut through the opening, ducking his head under Skye's arms as she slid the door open.

"How chivalrous," she said sarcastically. "Why did your ex ever leave you again?"

He flashed a tight-lipped grin in her direction and then stepped back to examine the wall they'd have to scale to get to the room upstairs.

"This view is incredible," Skye sighed, taking a moment to appreciate the sight of the brightly lit cityscape before her.

"Kind of just looks like a plain old brick wall to me," Lance replied, trying to bring her focus back to the task at hand. "But you know, whatever pleases the lady."

She scoffed and turned around to face him. He was climbing onto the railing of the balcony now, getting a feel for the bricks in the wall. It looked like they'd be able to grip into the awnings just fine, so the job didn't seem too impossible.

He stepped down from the rail and opened his bag to pull out a long piece of black rope to use as a precaution in case anything were to go wrong.

"Ladies first?" He asked, casting a look she couldn't read into in her direction. "So I've got your back in case something happens."

"I think I can handle climbing a wall," Skye said after a moment, blinking away. She felt suddenly confused, and she wasn't quite sure why. What she was sure of, however, was that she didn't like it. She tried shaking it off. "Don't you think the rope is excessive? If someone sees a rope dangling from an awning near the window of a room on the fourth floor of a ridiculous mansion-"

Lance was gripping his hands into fists at the side of his hips at this point, his expression twisting into one of sheer annoyance.

There was a sound far in the distance, but Skye ignored it in favor of continuing her rant. Before she could even finish her sentence, though, she was cut off by the force of Lance's lips. His hands were on her hips now, and he was pushing her up against the wall in the corner between the railing and the door.

Eyes still open, she caught the sight of a middle-aged woman dressed in an elegant pant suit stepping out onto the balcony. She recognized the woman as Marjorie Pascal, the owner of the building. She wrapped her hands around Lance's head and shut her eyes, giving into the rouse and deepening the kiss. Lance moved his attention to the skin between her shoulder and her neck, and if she was being honest with herself, it was all she could do not to moan.

She didn't want to believe that thought actually crossed her mind.

Her eyes opened to a narrow slit, curious to know whether or not they still had an audience. They did.

"Oh, my! How embarrassing!" exclaimed the woman in a thick accent (possibly Dutch) shielding her eyes from the scene. She apologized with a nervous laugh and slipped back into the room, almost slamming the door to the hallway behind her.

They continued for a bit, even after the moment had passed, before Skye came to her senses and slipped out from underneath Lance's embrace.

"That was close," she sighed in relief, trying to refocus her attention on the objective for the evening: Get to the safe. Get what Coulson needed. Plant the security-redirection chip Mack and Fitz concocted as a distraction. Leave.

Lance nodded in agreement and stretched in preparation for their climb.

"You're quick on your feet," Skye offered as a compliment after a moment of awkward silence. "I mean, that was fast-thinking. I'm glad you were paying more attention than I was."

Lance smirked and began tying the rope around Skye's waist, tying a knot tight enough to stay secure. He glanced up at her with a teasing glint in his eye. "How do you know I wasn't just waiting for an excuse to kiss you?" he asked, practically prodding her into another round of eye rolling.

"You are _hilarious_," she said dryly, leaning against the wall while she waited for him to strap up himself.

He stood up straight and flashed her a self-satisfied grin. "It's just another one of the many burdens I have to bear."

She shook her head and began her ascent up the wall without another word, desperately trying to push the memory of Lance's lips on her skin out of her mind, even though his touch lingered there far longer than she'd like to admit.


End file.
